By:Chris Munzing
Spiritis, who has multiple sclerosis, did not attend Tuesday's City Council meeting. Although his resignation is not effective until Nov. 4, he will be on medical leave until then. "I've had a health setback," he said in a phone interview with the Herald. "While I would have relished the opportunity to continue to serve as city manager, I must follow my doctor's orders and avail myself of early retirement."
Spiritis joined the city eight months ago, after serving as the Village of Hempstead's commissioner of community development. He made few friends during his tenure in Long Beach, angering city employees with his use of layoffs to solve fiscal problems. He had served as Long Beach's deputy city manager and director of planning and development in the 1980s.
Spiritis's resignation will leave the City Council looking for its third city manager in less than a year, and council President Jim Hennessy said that the search would begin as soon as the proper paperwork and advertisements were prepared.
Hennessy said the ideal candidate would be a fiscal conservative with a background in urban planning. He added that candidates from within the city are more than welcome, but that he would not limit the pool to local candidates.
Both Hennessy and council Vice President Tom Sofield said they would still aggressively pursue their agenda of reducing taxes, curbing overdevelopment and bringing the city out of its financial crisis. "We're still moving forward with our agenda," Sofield said. "And Charles [Theofan] is just as involved with it as Glen was."
Spiritis was brought in by the council earlier this year to find ways to bring order to the city's finances and streamline the city's day-to-day operations. While he and the Republican majority of the council succeeded in avoiding a tax increase, Spiritis drew the ire of many residents and city employees when 16 city workers were fired as part of an effort to cut costs.
"All the decisions Glen made, Glen thought were in the best interests of the city," Hennessy said.
Colleen Silvia, the executive vice president of the Civil Service Employees Association, said that despite the frequent clashes between the CSEA and Spiritis, she wishes Spiritis the best. "We wish him good health," Silvia said. She added that the union, which represents all city employees except fire and police personnel, is looking forward to sitting down with the new city manager once he or she is named.
"Hopefully we'll be able to iron out some of the differences between the city and the union, and hopefully get some jobs back," she said. "The workers weren't too happy."
Scott Nigro, head of the Democratic Party in Long Beach, said that Spiritis's dealings with the city work force will be his legacy as city manager. "He presided over a period of the lowest morale in City Hall that I can remember," Nigro said. "He also offered and passed a budget without the ability to pay for it because of all the one-shot revenues." Nigro cited the unfulfilled promise of the sale of the Waldbaum's property as an example, and added, "He has left huge holes in this budget."
"I'm concerned the Republican majority will try to place blame on the city manager for the budgetary mess that's been created," Councilman Denis Kelly said. He said that the one-shot revenues in this year's budget will only come back to haunt the council at the end of the fiscal year.
"[The Republicans] need to start addressing these concerns," Kelly said. "The council needs to sit down with [Comptroller] Alice Schildkraut and find out where we are with this budget. Because if things don't start happening, they're going to be one-term wonders."
Nigro also questioned why it took so long for an official announcement to come from the city after more than a week of rumors. "There are many questions to be answered, and I don't think the Republican majority is answering them," he said. "I think it's strange that it took a week to even acknowledge that the city manager was leaving."
Councilman Lenny Remo said that the most important thing for the current council and the future city manager to focus on is dealing with the fiscal issues facing the city, as well as the refurbishing of its infrastructure.
